My walk last night wasn’t particularly spectacular. It was long – a rainy day meant the bulk of my steps came during my evening walk (a little over three miles worth). I got lucky and caught a perfect break in the weather – not a drop of rain, though I was dressed for it just in case. The only notable things were the loud fight in one of the homeless encampments next to my route (Alli and I opted for a detour…) and my Fitbit’s heart rate sensor kept going flaky on me – an increasingly common trend of my weather-beaten Charge 4. But other than that, it was just another walk.

Oh, and it marked the 365^th consecutive day I’ve gotten at least 10,000 steps.

That’s a milestone that I find both awe-inspiring and mundane. Awe-inspiring because I have done this now for a year – come rain, come frigid temperatures, traveling, working two and three jobs, illnesses (oh yeah, I got covid this year, too!), everything that has happened in the course of a year and I still managed to get at least 10,000 steps in every. Single. Day.

But it’s a bit of a mundane milestone because, when I set out to do this – and you’d best believe this was a deliberate effort – my goal was simple: wake up every day with the knowledge that I would get 10,000 steps in. Not “I might get my steps in.” Not “I hope to…” No, just an ingrained knowledge that as sure as I got out of bed, I was going to get 10,000 steps in.

So, when I went to my log and typed in “11237” for my steps yesterday it felt… unremarkable. After all, I’d done 11,507 the day before, and almost 16 thousand steps the day before that… But it was remarkable – 11 thousand steps is not insignificant, and 10,000 steps for a year is an achievement!

A few years ago when I started walking for health – before we got Alli and I convinced myself I was walking for her – I remember walking across the valley floor at Armstrong Woods. It was late afternoon and I was crisscrossing the flat trails in the dappled light through the redwoods and I thought first how lucky I was to just be there among those majestic trees. And then I thought how lucky I was to be able simply walk there. I don’t think I was at my heaviest at that point, but I was pretty close and I found myself in tears because I was so grateful my body was holding up as well as it had.

At the time I had a gym membership, but I had more excuses for not going than I had actual attendance figures. But walking? In a goddamn redwood forest? That I could do. And I did. Because I could. Because I owed it to my body that put up with my neglect.

There’s a recurring reminder I set probably just after that walk to “Get 3 10,000 step days in a week!” I don’t remember when I wrote it, but I remember at the time that was a very ambitious goal – one I didn’t often hit!

One year of 10,000+ step days.

I mentioned I keep a log of my steps, and it’s yielded some interesting stats for this period:

• 365: number of consecutive 10,000 step days (as already stated).
• 2,309: number of miles walked over that period.
• 4,953,094: total number of steps taken over that period (that boggles my mind).
• 41,180: highest number of steps in one day during that period (that was my Mount Tam hike in September!).
• 10,082: the fewest steps in a day during that period.
• 39.8: the number of pounds I’ve lost since starting this quest.

It’s been quite a year! I absolutely intend on continuing as long as I can. In a few days I’ll celebrate the year anniversary of consecutively meeting my other metrics (steps, floors, distance, calories, and “zone minutes”). This has been phenomenal for my health and I am only going to keep working on it!

Here’s to the next year!